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[Caitlyn has never had a beer before. She's used to the finest wines and the most expensive whiskey and brandy in her parents' liquor cabinet, not this... swill. The smell and taste are both overwhelmingly repugnant, and even the feel of it in her stomach is, well, stomach-churning. But she's chugging her third of the evening before slamming the tankard down on the table and demanding another.

An arm-wrestling challenge soon follows, which she near-instantly loses to a man built like the beer keg her fourth drink comes out of. And soon after that, fourth drink in hand, she's up on the table, arm-in-arm with the man who beat her at arm-wrestling, dancing some sort of jig while somebody loudly saws away at a fiddle.]

[ Clara considers Caitlyn a friend, and by now, she feels like she knows her well enough. Well enough, at least, to know she isn't a beer-chugging arm wrestler.

What the hell?

She doesn't seem to be in danger, but it's not her. Clara makes her way over, glaring at someone who gets in her way. She's small, but intimidating when she's worried. ]

Caitlyn!

[ She shouts to be heard over the noise, and when that doesn't work, she brings out her very loud, stern, teacher voice. ]

Get down off the table right now.

[ She isn't angry, just worried Caitlyn is going to drunkenly fall and break her neck. Then what are they gonna do? ]

[Caitlyn doesn't see or hear Clara at first - a head taller than Clara even when they're on flat ground, now that she's up on a table Clara is well below her eyeline. But the stern voice reminds her enough of her mother to immediately cut through the fiddle music and the sound of her own feet stomping.]

Clara! [The burly fellow twirls her around, momentarily breaking her eye contact with Clara, as the fiddle music continues.

This a friend of yours, love? he asks.

Caitlyn nods.] Yes. [To Clara, she says:] You should join us up here!

[Why did she say that? She didn't really mean to. Ever since her excursion to the Room of Seals, she's been having urges and compulsions that she can only assume are a result of whatever deal she may have inadvertently made by agreeing to give something sanctuary. It's like there's someone else in her head with her, and that person wants nothing so much as to drink, dance, and be merry.]

What? No, I should no—

[ Before she can say anything else, she's being hoisted up and the burly guy easily brings her the rest of the way onto the table. She weighs nearly nothing, so it didn't take much effort. At least now she can see Caitlyn up close, and Clara grabs her hand. ]

You seem like you've had a lot to drink.

[ She's eying her, one eyebrow raised. Not in mom shame, but in friend concern. ]

I'm quite alright! I've only had a few beers.

[Three glasses of the stuff in quick succession does have her feeling a little light-headed, but any desire to stop has been overriden. In fact, there's a beer in her hand right now, isn't there? She ought to be drinking more.

So she does, taking a swig large enough to have caused an international incident if she'd done it in front of her mother.

The burly man claps her on the back before whirling both her and Clara around, clearly eager to continue the jig.]

Have you had anything to drink, Clara? The beer's quite good!

[It's not, it's awful. But that feeling in her head insists it's wonderful, really, and she's enjoying it, and her friends should be enjoying themselves too.]

I can smell the beer all around me, and I'm highly doubting it tastes very good.

[ She gets caught up in the jig, her fear of falling not abated in any way. She yelps just a little when she feels like she might slip, and the crowd hollers and shoots when she instinctively presses closer to the burly man.

He's being a gentleman, all things told, and she finally relents. ]

I'll have one drink with you. Just one!

[Caitlyn reaches out to catch Clara in case she falls, but Clara manages to catch herself, so instead she just grins at her friend before cheering and calling for another drink. A beer is quickly supplied for Clara.

She clanks her own tankard against the burly man's, then against the one that's being shoved at Clara.]

Cheers!

[She flings her head back and downs nearly the entirely beer in one gulp. And then she turns and plants a kiss on the burly man. Which is odd, because kissing complete strangers - even friendly kisses just for fun - is not something she does. There's only one person she wants to be kissing, and Vi's not here.

The crowd erupts again. The burly man turns to Clara and says, shouting to be heard over the music and hollers, Your friend's had at least one too many. Make sure she gets back to her bunk safe, yeah?]

[ The beer is awful, and Clara only manages a couple of sips. She has to draw the line at kissing random men, and she looks at the burly man. He's been decent, and she nods, smiling just a touch. ]

Hey, Caitlyn! Let's put that energy into kissing Vi! Remember her? Love letters and feelings and wanting to be with Vi? C'mon, let's go walk and talk about her. Tell me everything.

[ Finers crossed this tactic works, she has no idea if it will appeal to Caitlyn's sober instincts or not. But she has to try! She fancies herself strong, but not big enough to support a totally tits-up woman. ]

[The part of Caitlyn that still feels like Caitlyn would like nothing more than to talk about Vi. Or find Vi. But the compulsion that's been directing her to get drunk and dance on tables just wants to keep the party going.]

I've spent my whole life only ever allowed to do what my parents deemed 'proper.' [That much is true, though it still seems to be coming from that feeling in her head.]

And I'd like very much... [To catch a serial killer, which her parents would never approve of her doing, and kiss a girl she truly likes rather than some vapid heiress chosen by her mum.] It's as though there's something. In my head. That wants nothing more than to have one good night of revelry.

[ Clara raises her eyebrows, remembering something, but not fully. It's been a long few weeks, she can't absorb it all. But still, now she's pretty sure something's happening because of this place. ]

You have a human body that can't drink much more or you'll have alcohol poisoning. If what's in your head can hear me, there's not much revelry to be had if you die.

[ She can't be sure how much Caitlyn's had to drink prior to her own arrival. If they were someplace normal, she'd take her to clubs and let her dance her heart out. ]

Your parents have too many rules for you, but they aren't even on this planet so really, you can do whatever you want, anytime you want. Not just when there's a ghost in your head or something.

I don't think I can. I don't think they can. [She quickly corrects herself. Of course Clara's right that Caitlyn can do whatever she likes here, but the same isn't true of whatever she's sharing her head with.

She leans in closely, aiming to whisper in Clara's ear but instead accidentally knocking her forehead into Clara's nose and saying in a whisper loud enough to be heard on the other side of the room,] I suspect they're dead.

Besides, I've only had four beers. [Said like someone with a much higher tolerance for alcohol than Caitlyn, who's only ever indulged in a small glass of sherry or a finger of brandy after dinner and has never in her life been properly drunk before.] Come on, Clara, dance with me.

[She flings an arm around Clara's waist and tries to spin her around, and would have spun herself right off the table if not for the burly man grabbing the back of her shirt as though he were grabbing a kitten by the scruff of its neck.]

[ They're going with possessed, then. All that Clara can do is make sure Caitlyn doesn't wind up hurt on the ground or hurling her guts up. Or maybe she can figure out how to get whatever is in her out?

She's trying to figure out what the right thing to do might be when Caitlyn's head knocks into Clara's nose and she brings up her hands to press on either side, rubbing away the pain. Then, before she can make much of a decision at all, she's in Caitlyn's arms and she spins, looking at the burly man gratefully.

It'd be so much more fun if she wasn't being controlled by something or someone! Clara decides maybe she should at least bargain to get off of the tables. ]

I'll dance with you and even get your next drink if we can dance on the ground. Please?

[Despite how carefully the burly man sets her down on the ground, Caitlyn momentarily loses her balance and stumbles into the table. But it's a minor setback before she's making an uncoordinated and not particularly successful effort to clamber up again.]

The table's much more fun, don't you think?

Nope. I do not. I'm staying right here.

[ She looks at the burly man to please help her by not enabling anymore and reaches out to take Caitlyn's arm. ]

As your friend? I think you should drink some water and sit down.

[ Does wahtever's inside Caitlyn have ulterior motives? Will it hurt her, or let her get hurt? Clara can't let that happen. ]

[Caitlyn has the sudden urge to say 'you're not my mum,' which would be very petty and childish and not at all the sort of thing she'd be inclined to say. But before the words can leave her lips, she's struck with an overwhelming wave of sadness.

She sinks down into a chair.]

I miss my mum. [Is that her talking, or the person sharing her head? Maybe it's both. She'd give anything to see her mum again, but she also gets the sense that they miss their mum too.

Someone with an overbearing, overprotective mum who, when everything goes wrong, they realize really loves them and who they desperately miss? Perhaps there's a reason this dead person decided to haunt her.]

We should find my mum.

[She stands up, only to have the room suddenly spin out of control and crash into Clara.]

I suspect. [Said with the too-perfect diction of someone having to work hard not to slur their words.] I may be inebriated.

[ Before she can explain why that's not possible, Clara does her best to catch Caitlyn, and she winds up half holding her around the waist, planting her feet so she can support her friend. ]

Caitlyn, and whoever else is in there, I don't think your mum's here. But tell me about her. Tell me everything you miss about your mum, and I'll tell you everything I miss about mine.

[ The promise is out of her mouth before she can think about it. She just wants to get somewhere relatively safe, where there's no alcohol and no high counters. She makes sure they're both as steady as they can be. ]

C'mon. Please?

[Caitlyn nods. And then she nods again because she's not sure whether she nodded the first time. Is she standing upright?

She sinks back down into a seat.

Caitlyn doesn't talk about herself much. She prefers action to talk, and if someone has to talk about themselves, she prefers to listen to other people do it. Talking about something as personal as her mother certainly doesn't come easily.]

My mum was. Is. [Her mum's not dead. The person in her head, is their mum dead?] She never let me do anything that I wanted to do. She always said it wasn't proper or that it was beneath me or it was too dangerous. All I wanted was to be-- [An enforcer. A paladin. It's confusing, having a voice in her head whose life echoes so much of her own.] I wanted to help people. I didn't care whether it was dangerous. [She liked the danger.

Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's the person sharing her head, but the words start to come easier, and as she says them, she feels as though a weight begins to lift.]

She never. The last time I saw her... [The siege. The Council meeting. Her thoughts, even under the best of circumstances, sometimes zip by too fast for her to catch them, and now she has someone else's thoughts in her head and everything's topsy-turvy from all the beer and she can't remember what happened the last time she saw her mum.] She hardly ever told me she loved me. But she showed it. She. She used to sit with me when I was sick. All night with me. She never cried, because tears are unbecoming, but when I did she always held me until they'd run their course. She hated getting her hands dirty, but she. When I fell and scraped my knees.

[She finished that sentence, right?]

Tell me about your mum.

Edited 2023-03-14 04:55 (UTC)

[ It's hard for Clara to know for sure if all the words are Caitlyn's or her unwanted, internal guest. But she listens all the same and feels the emotion of it. Their experiences were vastly different back in their homes, but she likes to think she still understands, at least a little. Reaching out, she takes Caitlyn's hand, and looks at her intently but with such kindness. She's trying to see through to the paladin inside and her friend. ]

Mums want more for us, even if we don't see eye to eye about it. It's okay to have complicated feelings, even feelings that contradict one another. Annoyed and appreciative can go hand and hand. You can even be angry while still knowing deep down you need your mum, opposing ideas or not. But if she kissed your knees and dried your tears, then I promise she loves you and always will, no matter how you clash.

[ Taking a deep breath, Clara lets it out and squeezes Caitlyn's hand, smiling softly before putting her hands in her lap. ]

She was my favorite person in the world. After I graduated uni, we were gonna travel and go to all the places where the greatest wonders of the ancient world used to be. She taught me how to make a souffle and Christmas cookies. But before she—before she died, she hated that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, she thought I wasn't serious enough sometimes. She loved me, though, and she showed it a lot.

[ Clara hadn't decided on teaching until after her mum's death, and after traveling with the Doctor for a while. There's a lump in her throat that she swallows down before finding her voice again. ]

Where's your mum?

[ It's a soft question, and she's asking whatever's inside, since this is their world. ]

[Caitlyn smiles softly and squeezes Clara's hand back, grateful to have a friend to talk to who understands. And she knows the person in her head is grateful too.

She listens quietly to Clara speaking, and once she's done, she throws her arms around Clara's shoulders, holding her tightly.]

I'm sorry you lost her. I think their mum might be dead too. [It's a bit hazy, but the sorrow she's feeling isn't purely empathy for Clara.]

[ Clara holds onto Caitlyn, and maybe she's trying to hold onto the sad spirit inside of her, too. They seem lost, and she wonders if the partying was a way to cope—she understands that. ]

When mine died, I went a little...out of character. I partied and stayed out and made very questionable choices. So if that's how they feel, I understand. It doesn't help, though, and it's okay to be sad.

[ She feels like maybe she's laying it on thick, but oh well. Maybe the ghost (?) needs to hear it. ]

I'm sorry they lost their mom, too.

[Caitlyn feels a sort of relief wash over her, and she hugs Clara more tightly. She's trying hard to hold onto the thread of the conversation, but thanks to the drink, all she can really hold in her head is that everyone's mum is dead, she misses her own mum, and she's devastated about all of it.]

I think your mum would be really proud, Clara.

Yours too. You and the spirit with you. [ Whatever it is. ]

Mums can be so tricky sometimes, but they're still ours in the end, yeah?

[ For better or worse, they must deal with the parents they're given. But she thinks in Caitlyn's case there's love, based on what she's said. Letting go, Clara smiles enough to look happy again. ]

What else can I do for you and your tagalong? That does not involve alcohol!

Yeah.

[Caitlyn pulls back, but doesn't let go of Clara's shoulders. She might lose her balance if she does.

What to do now? Caitlyn, addled with drink, thinks that this is the perfect opportunity to go hunting in the glacial lakes for a serial killer, or in the mines for a secret back entrance to Rathakku's camp.

The ghost sharing her head latches onto the idea of the glacial lakes and decides that there's a lot more fun to be had there than chasing after a murderer. Something to get all their minds off their sorrows.]

I think we should go skinny-dipping. [That thought definitely did not originate from Caitlyn. It takes her a long moment to even process that it came out of her mouth.]

[ Right now, skinny-dipping is better thank drinking. And she's done her fair share of drunk lake trips with friends. There's just one small thing. ]

Could you please ask if it understands we have physical bodies and will freeze to death in that water? I've been in the cold water, trust me, it isn't fun.

[ She shivers at the memory. ]

Anything else. Except drinking. Is there a hot spring we don't know about, maybe?

[ She's being sort of cheeky, but also, that'd be amazing. ]

[The disappointment Caitlyn feels is palpable, even if it isn't her own.

But then, Clara suggests a hot spring, and while neither Caitlyn nor the ghost knows of any of those, the ghost does have a suggestion.

She leans in as though to whisper conspiratorially.]

I know of a swimming pool. [She's not at all whispering.] Up in the Keep. It would certainly be empty at this hour.

[ Clara can't help but laugh, because drunk friends are hilarious friends. But she manages to stifle it, clearing her throat. What the hell, if no one will get hurt, if it is safe. ]

Tell your paladin to lead the way then. As long as it's safe, and you Caitlyn, don't mind the idea of skinny dipping.

[ They're friends, she doesn't want her to feel any sort of awkward later. ]

[Internally, Caitlyn is blushing furiously at the idea of skinny dipping. But there is a treacherous little part of her that's curious. She's never done anything so, well, scandalous before. Sober, without a ghost in her head egging her on, she would probably be too embarrassed to ever do it. But now, as it is, that little part of her wants to find out what it's like.

And the ghost certainly doesn't need encouraging. Before she knows it, she's grabbing Clara's hand and striding confidently in the wrong direction before stumbling to a halt, turning around once or twice, and putting an arm around Clara's shoulders to steady herself.]

It's that way. [She doesn't point in any particular direction, and it takes her a moment to start walking.

A thought occurs.] Should we get another drink to go?

[ Now that they aren't on tables, Clara feels more relaxed but still protective, though she lets Caitlyn/her ghost friend lead her around. There are times she laughs under her breath, but she's there as support, every time. ]

A drink to go, huh?

[ Caitlyn absolutely does not need more alcohol. ]

After, let's aim for after. Swimming might...you know. Sober us up.

[ Boy is she hoping not to have to argue on this one. She doesn't want her friend to be sick and full of regret later. ]

[The ghost groans in disappointment, and Caitlyn only realizes on a delay that the sound actually came out of her mouth. But they're still walking, and at this point they're probably too far away to go back and get a drink.

Unless...

She turns around, and almost walks directly into a wall.

What was she doing again?

Oh. Right. Swimming pool.]

Swimming pool. This way. [She grabs Clara's hand and guides her in a direction. It's a meandering path, and she's stumbling and leaning on Clara plenty, but they'll get there in the end.]

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for Clara

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sorry for the delay! work's been crazy

never any worries there, I get it!

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sorry for my slowness!

no worries at all!

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